Many laser surgical systems are known in which a hand-held surgical device is applied by a surgeon to deliver laser energy to tissues at such a rate that the affected tissues disintegrate into gaseous and/or vaporized substances. Such a delivery of laser energy, for example to effect localized incisions, generally requires a relatively small tip element shaped and oriented to enable the surgeon to see clearly where the laser energy is being delivered. It is inevitable in surgery that blood vessels are occasionally incised, whether the surgeon is applying a scalpel or a laser surgical tool. To prevent undesirable bleeding from the cut blood vessel, the surgeon or an assistant typically cauterizes the incised blood vessel as quickly as possible. Such cauterization may require separate tools, but certain versatile laser energy delivering tip elements are also known which enable a user to selectively apply the same tool to effect either incisions or cauterization of incised vessels
Regardless of how good the local ventilation is in an operating room, a surgeon performing precise incision/cauterization with a laser surgical tool must contend with the presence of unpleasant odors, smoke and the gaseous and/or vaporized byproducts of the heated tissues every time he or she applies laser energy. Surgeons and their operating room assistants would experience less stress and be able to function more efficiently if the gaseous and/or vaporized substances produced during surgery and cauterization were immediately removed from the site where they are produced.
A need, therefore, clearly exists for an improved laser energy delivery tip element which enables a user to remove gaseous and/or vaporized substances immediately upon their production during surgery and cauterization.
Furthermore, even though versatile laser energy delivery tip elements are known which are useful for both incision making and for cauterization, to simplify the surgeon's task in operating the hand-held laser surgical tool, it is also highly desirable to provide the surgeon with a separately operated cauterization system in which controlled amounts of heat can be selectively delivered by the incision-making tip element itself without the need for separate tools or additional hand-operated actuation elements.
The present invention, as described more fully hereinbelow and as illustrated in its essentials in the accompanying drawing figures, is intended to meet both of these needs, i.e., to immediately remove gaseous and/or vaporized substances from the surgical site and, with the same tip element, to enable the surgeon to selectively deliver controlled amounts of energy to effect cauterization by a foot-actuated control.